Pranks and Real Anger
by Mythical Words
Summary: I'm Katie, daughter of Demeter. Everything started on the day that Travis Stoll decided to play another series of pranks on me. Only this time Tyler, a son of Aphrodite, decided to help me out. If love magic even counts as help.
1. Chapter 1

**Pranks and Real Anger**

**Disclaimer: I am not Rick Riordan.**

**A/N: This relates to my fic, ****Son of the Love Goddess****, but it isn't necessary to read that before reading this. Thanks to Kittycat32 for beta-ing this!**

"Travis Stoll!" I shouted really loudly, furious at yet another prank. I was bound to a marble column by thin, metal wires that looked a lot like the ones that had recently been stolen from the forge by a certain set of brothers. The idiot Stolls had set another prank for me and, even worse, I had fallen into it. At the sound of my shout, everyone nearby flinched, except the son of Aphrodite who was busy getting beaten up by a daughter of Ares. The one who flinched the most was Travis. "You little thieving, stupid son of Hermes!" I screamed at him. Then I threw every insult and swear word that I could think of at him.

"Why aren't you yelling at Connor as well?" Travis asked me. Big mistake.

I graced him with a furious glare and then bellowed, "CONNOR STOLL!" The bellow was so loud that everyone in the camp heard quite clearly and everyone near me clutched their ears. I noticed that the son of Aphrodite, his name was Tyler, had stopped trying to defend himself against the British child of Ares and was instead watching Travis and me quite closely. There was something in that look that made me wary. Especially when I swear I could've seen a slight pink glow shimmer around him as a thread of pink found its way to both Travis and me.

Travis winced and looked around when I shouted for his brother. Chiron had already told both him and Connor that if they played one more prank on my cabin this week they would both be doing kitchen duty for the rest of the summer. Travis looked like he was desperately hoping that I would shut up before Chiron arrived.

So I yelled at him, "You'll regret this when you're doing kitchen duty." I prepared to bellow for Chiron, but I never got the chance. Idiot Travis, desperate not to get stuck in the kitchen for the summer, kissed me. KISSED ME. And all I could think about was the way it made my insides melt. I could feel the stares of everyone around us. By the time Travis pulled away from me, Connor had arrived. I could see the triumphant and lazy smile on Tyler's face. The effing son of Aphrodite had put a _love spell _on us!

I'd show him. Though I wasn't precisely sure which him I was referring to. "You are soo not forgiven. Now let me go."

"No," The Stoll brothers said together.

"Oh, do let her go," Aphrodite said from where she had just appeared.

I would've run away as fast as I could, except I was tied to a marble column. Why? Why? Why? First the son of Aphrodite, now Aphrodite herself!

"Why?" Connor asked.

Aphrodite frowned, "How is this supposed to be romantic if she's tied to a marble column?"

That's when Connor and I both lost it. Connor rolled around on the ground laughing so hard he couldn't breath. My vision turned red along with my face and the grass at my feet shot up five feet.

"Romantic?" I asked, giving a death glare to the goddess, her son, and the Stoll brothers.

Aphrodite smiled charmingly, "I can only do so much. You have to do the rest."

"Do the rest my..." I muttered and closed my eyes. I grew a vine that wrapped around the dagger I had dropped and lifted it to my hands. After several minutes of hacking and help from the vine, I was free.

The first thing I did was smirk at Aphrodite- which was probably a bad idea, but I didn't care- and punch Travis.

Ha! Take that. Then I glared darkly at all three of the boys (the Stolls and Tyler) and marched back to my cabin. When I got inside I changed into gardening clothes, pulled my hair into a ponytail and crossed my arms. Then I marched back out of the cabin to the strawberry fields. Everywhere I went someone's eyes followed me. I was going to kill Travis. And Tyler. And Connor. Too bad it was impossible to kill a goddess.

I spent the rest of the day working furiously in the fields. I ignored the traitorous voice inside me that wanted to know if it had merely been the magic that had made Travis kiss me. And I ignored the even more traitorous part of me that had liked the kiss. That was glad that Travis had kissed me. I blamed the love spell for that part of me. No matter if it was the love spell's fault or not. I didn't care.


	2. Chapter 2

**Pranks and Real Anger**

**Disclaimer: I am not Rick Riordan.**

**A/N: Tell me what you think! Thanks once more to Kittycat32 for beta-ing this!**

I walked quickly and silently- I didn't make any noise when I walked on plants, which is a major perk to being a daughter of Demeter during Capture the Flag- through the woods.

It had been a week since the Aphrodite incident and I had not spoken to or acknowledged anyone from the Hermes and Aphrodite cabins. My cabin had sided with the Athena cabin while the Hermes cabin had sided with the Ares cabin. I was determined to beat the Hermes cabin in the game of Capture the Flag that was currently underway. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I was following the complex and carefully laid plan that Annabeth had created. Annabeth was an expert on plans. My part was actually pretty easy.

At least until I walked into a trap.

I had looked up upon hearing the snap of a twig, but I kept walking, for whatever stupid reason. Because I was looking for the invisible- Which they actually might have been- person who was nearby I didn't notice the tripwire. Until I tripped over it and set off the trap. In less than a second I was hanging upside down. Unlike the other traps that had been set up especially for my cabin, this one was not designed with Demeter children in mind. I was being dangled upside down by a rope. But the rope was attached to a tree. Easy enough to get out of the trap. The one thing that bothered me was this looked suspiciously like a Stoll brother trap and the Stoll brothers always wanted to see their work. So where was he?

Putting aside my train of logical thinking- I couldn't go anywhere or do anything about the creator of the idiotic trap until I was actually free of the thing, I growled under my breath. I spit out a few insults and curses before asking the tree to let me down. Unsurprisingly, it obliged. Especially because I happened to be friends with the nymph who lived in it.

"You got free." It was Travis.

"Of course I got free, you idiot." I said, ignoring the flip of my belly at the sound of his voice. Why was my body such a traitor? I glared at him and unsheathed my sword. Travis did the same. I swung, aiming for his over-large head, but only knocked off his helmet. That was when I realized that I had no idea where my helmet was. It had probably fallen off somewhere when I'd been swung upside down.

I attacked, blocked, and parried for several minutes without gaining or losing the advantage. I was tiring, but Travis wasn't. I had to do something before I got too tired and he won. It didn't help that I'd spent my entire day working in the strawberry fields.

Summoning up more energy from within, I attacked, perfectly executing a move that I'd learned just the other day. The move ended with my sword and Travis's interlocked and to the side of us so that our sword-arms were stretched out to the side. We were both breathing heavily and the trick I'd used brought me within inches of Travis. I wanted to get away from him because he was messing me up. It didn't help that I could see Travis's eyes and, instead of looking mischievous like usual, there was a speculative, wondering look in them. Travis leaned forward slightly and kissed me. I was too surprised to move. His kiss was soft, luxurious, and tempting. Before I could allow myself to be tempted into something that was beyond stupid, I pulled back and aimed my dagger, which I'd just taken out of its sheath, at his throat.

"Don't move." I hissed, trying to forget the wonderful feeling of his lips on mine.

But the dagger disappeared out of my hand and a disembodied voice that sounded suspiciously like Aphrodite's said, "Now, now. That moment is much, much better without the dagger. Swords as well." And our swords disappeared.

Unbelievable. How in Olympus was I supposed to fight him if I didn't have any weapons? I tried to walk away from him, but I hit a solid and invisible wall that bounced me backwards. I fell on my butt on the ferns on the forest floor. I stood up, crossed my arms, and tossed my hair over my shoulder, glaring up at the sky. Travis just looked at his feet. Idiot.

"Travis? What is taking so long? Who did we catch?" Connor's voice preceded him through the trees.

"You caught someone who never wants to see you again." I snarled, furious. Something about the Stoll brothers brought out my fury and venom.

"Hi, Katie." Connor walked out of the trees, grinning mischievously.

"Stoll." I said, watching as Connor walked through the wall that had just stopped me. The wall didn't seem to be stopping him from going anywhere.

"Where are your weapons?" Connor asked looking around.

But before either of us could answer, a very loud cheer and the sound of a conch horn being blown filled the forest. From the direction of the cheers it was clear that my side had won and theirs had not.

"Aphrodite stole them." Travis explained to his brother. And, because I had the worst luck in the world, this was when most of the rest of the camp showed up to find out where their missing team members were.

"Aphrodite stole your weapons?" Connor started to laugh. Apparently he found Aphrodite's visits hilarious. I glared at him, not at all seeing the hilarity in it.

"Shut up." I hissed, and big, thorny vines grew out of nowhere, trapping both Connor and Travis. I hadn't actually meant for those to grow, but I was certainly controlling them now.

"Hey, I wasn't laughing." Travis protested.

"For once in your short life." I shot back. Then I picked up the sword that Connor had dropped and returned to my cabin-mates.

Everyone in the camp was staring at the stuck Stoll brothers and most of them were laughing. Even Clarisse was smiling. The wall seemed to have disappeared. Thank all the gods.

I couldn't sleep that night. I tossed and turned, trying not to wake up any of my siblings. After a very long hour or two I slipped out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans. I slipped silently out the door and walked to the strawberry fields. Usually, if I couldn't sleep, I'd just garden for a while. I tried to do that, but the plants I took care of looked worse for my time, rather than better. Obviously, that was not going to work.

I put away my gardening tools and wandered around, careful to avoid any harpies that might want to eat me. Somehow, I ended up at the beginning of the path that went through the forest, right past where my vine cage had Travis and Connor trapped.

For some reason I walked down it. I knew how stupid that was. Going in the forest alone wasn't smart. Going in the forest alone at _night_ was even worse. Who knew what monsters were wandering around in there? Never the less, I kept walking down the path to my cage.

When I got there I smiled. My cage was large, the plants growing in such a way so that I could see in, but the Stolls couldn't get out. I looked past the briars to the sleeping boys. It couldn't possibly feel comfortable in there, and I felt a twinge of guilt. My eyes fell onto Travis's face. He was half-smiling and his hair was more messed up than usual.

I stared at the way the moonlight painted patterns on his skin for a few minutes. When I fully realized what I was doing I told myself to snap out of it. Just in time too. Connor woke up, probably from the creepy feeling that you get on the back of your neck when someone is looking at you while you're asleep.

When he saw me he shook Travis until Travis woke up with a sleepy grumble of, "I'm _asleep_."

"Come on, Katie, let us out of here," Travis wheedled, once he was awake.

"No. You both deserve to be in there." I tried to glare, but for some stupid reason I couldn't.

"For one little prank?" Travis asked.

"No. For every non-little and supposedly harmless prank that you have ever played on me."

"Don't forget me," Connor complained.

"I am not forgetting you. You are in there for every single trick or 'joke' that you ever pulled on my cabin and for laughing." Since I couldn't glare, I settled for a cold smile.

"Let us out?" Travis asked, half-pleading.

"So you can get revenge on me?" I shook my head. "No way."

But no sooner had I said this than the cage disappeared and Connor started being pushed out of the clearing by an invisible force. My cage just disappeared and released the two little menaces.

"That wasn't me." I said in a tone that clearly indicated just how little patience for my luck I had left. In other words, I was out of patience with all this.

"Didn't think so." Travis looked around. There was no trace of the cage or the plants that had made up the cage.

"Help!" Connor cried. I looked at him and quickly realized what had happened. Connor was being pushed out of the clearing by something invisible. Leaving Travis and me alone in the forest. At night. Could she be a little more obvious?

"Mother!" I cried completely and thoroughly exasperated with the goddess of love and hoping that my mom, Demeter, goddess of agriculture, could help me.

Connor stopped being pushed out of the clearing and not one, but three gods appeared. The first was Demeter, my mother, the second Hermes, Travis and Connor's father, and the third Aphrodite. They appeared to be in the middle of a big argument.

"Not happening." Hermes glared at Demeter, me, and Aphrodite all at once.

"I have everything under control," Aphrodite pouted.

Which was why I had called my mother in exasperation, not really expecting her to reply. The three Olympians turned to us, their children.

"You called me?" Demeter was the first to speak, and she spoke only to me, her daughter.

"I was hoping that you could help me. If it wouldn't be to much to ask." I glanced at Aphrodite who looked slightly offended. Exactly what I needed.

"Travis? Connor?" Hermes looked to his sons, "Do you wish my help as well?" While Hermes sounded serious, he looked anything but.

Connor didn't say anything, but looked at his brother.

"Yes." Travis replied, also glaring at Aphrodite.

"Don't bother," she told him. "I can hear your thoughts."

Hear his thoughts? What did that mean? Why did I care what that meant?

"Aphrodite," Demeter said in a commanding tone.

"Yes?" Now Aphrodite was playing the innocent child.

"You will stop toying with our children." Hermes crossed his arms.

"I am not toying!" Aphrodite exclaimed.

The argument continued until Hermes and Demeter made Aphrodite swear on the river Styx to leave Travis and Katie alone. As a farewell Demeter told me, in my mind, _watch what you say and do. Aphrodite will not forget this soon. And eat more wheat cereal._

I nodded even though the wheat cereal thing was ridiculous, and the god and goddesses disappeared. I turned to Travis and Connor to find that Aphrodite had returned the weapons that she had taken.

Connor and Travis went straight back to their cabin, but I stayed in the woods, perched in a low branch of a tree to think.


	3. Chapter 3

**Pranks and Real Anger Chapter 3**

**Disclaimer: I am not Rick Riordan. Duh. **

**A/N: Thank you to the wonderful Kittycat32 for beta-ing this! (And for writing her awesome stories!)**

I love trees. I love sitting in trees. Especially when I need to think. So I wasn't exactly happy when a loud crunching noise like that of someone walking towards me interrupted my peaceful thoughts. Even if my thoughts weren't exactly peaceful. (I was mostly thinking about how much I'd like to kill Tyler for interfering in my life.) So when the crunching noise kept coming towards me, I stood up on the thick branch, knowing that I wouldn't fall. My weapons were in my hands and I was ready to defend myself against any monster. Travis walked into the clearing- alone- and raised his eyebrows as he saw my fighting stance.

"Trying to kill me?" Travis asked as he leaned casually against the tree. Unfortunately, the dryad that lived in the tree wasn't home right then to kick his butt.

"I wish," I muttered, sheathing my sword and crossing my arms. "And I'm trying to not get myself killed."

"Who would try to kill you?" Travis asked as he yawned luxuriously. I wanted to kill him.

"Duh, Travis. Monsters? Offended gods? Crazy half-bloods?"

"Oh, right," Travis said like none of those things were serious threats. I really, really wanted to kill him.

A voice inside my head repeated something that I had heard Beckendorf tell Percy a long time ago. He had said, "A girl starts trying to kill you, you know she's into you." Hearing a dead guy's advice in my head is really annoying. Mostly because of what he'd said. I wasn't going to think about that so I diverted my attention.

"Don't you ever sleep?" I asked, because it was the first thing that popped into my head.

"What do you mean?"

Like he didn't know. "I mean, you're either in your cabin devising a plan to prank my cabin or you are pranking my cabin." I said bitterly. The Easter decorations and chocolate bunnies on my cabin's roof wasn't in the least funny. "When do you sleep?"

"Hermes cabin secret," Travis said with a crooked grin that made my heart flutter and my fist curl up and try to whack all the air out of him.

I hate ADHD. One minute I'm furious at him, the next I'm talking with him like we're friends. Ha. The day that Travis Stoll becomes my friend is the day of my doom.

"You do know that you have a talent for walking into traps, made for you or others, right?" Travis asked me.

"Gee, thanks, Travis," I said as I rolled my eyes.

"Your welcome," Travis said with a slight smirk, "It's my pleasure." And he was back to being the boy who infuriated me beyond belief.

"You are so... so... frustrating!" I cried, throwing my hands up in the air with exasperation.

But, to my great surprise, Travis wasn't pleased by this outburst. I expected him to smirk and bow. Instead, he looked surprised and... hurt. I stared at him for a few minutes, unable to take in the fact that I had just hurt Travis. And not physically, either. That, at least, would've made sense. He turned and started to walk quickly away from me, his entire body stiff as a board. I must have hurt him even more than he had let on with his expression. Maybe, just maybe this meant... But that wasn't possible. Travis couldn't have any feelings for me. It was fake. Caused by Tyler-son-of-Aphrodite and his love magic. He was notorious around camp for "helping out" people's relationships. But my body didn't seem to be listening to my brain because I dropped lithely from the tree and landed on the forest floor. Vines wrapped around Travis's ankles so I could catch up to him.

"Ow! Katie!" Travis complained in his usual way as he tripped and landed on his face. But he didn't look at me or let me see his face.

I stood over Travis as he pushed himself to his feet again. "I thought you liked being frustrating," I said because, honestly, I was sick of this. Sick of it.

"I used to," Travis muttered as he looked everywhere but at me.

"Used to?" I asked, thoroughly confused and, with every second, becoming more certain that I was right about Tyler's love spell.

Travis didn't respond.

"So if you 'used to' why don't you know?" I demanded, my hands going to my hips as my heart throbbed with pain.

"I dunno," Travis mumbled in a voice that was barely audible.

"You don't know?" I asked in an extremely icy voice. Then I stopped myself. Something was going on here. Travis had never acted like that before. Never. And, he had had plenty of revengeful magics put on him.

Travis studied his shoes like his life- and the whole world- depended on him being able to recall exactly how many inches there were between laces. (Apparently Hermes kids are fond of sneakers.) He looked like he was scared, which was weird since the only times I had ever seen him scared were when

I was seeing red and he was the cause. That happened a lot, but I wasn't bellowing at him right then. Why couldn't he just meet my eyes? Was it so hard to look at me? Was I that ugly? I waited for several minutes, waiting for him to either look at me or make a rude comment. Neither came and my (limited) patience was used up. I put my hand under his chin, wondering at the way it felt to touch him when I wasn't in battle armor slash furious. I used the strength I got in the fighting arena and the strawberry fields (it wasn't exactly the planting that made me strong, more the people who seemed to insist on eating strawberries that I was trying to pick and package up) to lift his chin up and force him to look at me.

And then my ADHD did the speaking for me. "Does this have something to do with the other day? When you kissed me to get me to shut up?" And Tyler put love magic on the two of us? I added mentally, while inwardly wincing at what I had just said.

Travis gave a slight grunt that could have been a yes. So what happened next, that made me think that the love magic had seriously messed with my head.

So I stared at him for several minutes, waiting for him to say something. Slow as I am, it finally became clear that not only wasn't Travis going to say anything, he couldn't say anything. Even though I still had his chin in my hand, making him face me, he had yet to actually look me in the eyes. I leaned forward slightly and kissed him lightly on the nose. _That _got his attention. His eyes moved to mine, but I was done. I wasn't waiting any longer for him to use his limited brain cells to try and remember how to talk. I went back to the tree and grabbed the rest of my stuff that Aphrodite had so kindly returned to me. I was just bending down to pick up my newly repaired dagger (the dagger that I was going to make minced meat out of Tyler) when Travis's hand on my shoulder alerted me to the fact that he had moved from his previous position to a place just behind me, completely silent. Why did he have to be all Hermes-like just then? I jumped and toppled, falling over. Then I turned to look up at him, wondering what in the world could happen next on such a crazy night.

"I-uh-gator-um-err-sheep," was what I heard when he opened his mouth.

"How many brain cells does it take to form a coherent sentence?" Was what I was tempted to say. But I didn't say it. No, I said, "Travis, how can you pull of an immensely complicated prank without the slightest problem, if you have trouble talking?"

Yeah, neither thing was nice. Or polite. But he didn't seem angry at me, which was really strange. Why wouldn't he be angry at me? I had just kind of insulted him, though the sentence I had said out loud wasn't as insulting as the one I had wanted to say. But so many different feelings were running through me.

"Sorry." Travis said, looking down at his feet. Again. Could his shoes really be that interesting? Really? They didn't even have wings! But that was beside the point.

What I should have said was, "It's me who should be apologizing. I'm sorry I snapped at you." Or something along those lines. But, no. I had to say something less polite: something even ruder. "You know you should have apologized a long time ago. The stuff you did to my cabin was completely worthy of an apology."

And the weirdest thing of all: Travis was blushing!

I glared at him. Why couldn't he just act normal?

"That's not quite what I meant," Travis said, seemingly regaining his power of speech. Amazing! And then he opened his mouth and nothing came out. This was seriously not funny. Apparently, he gave up on words, because instead he did something crazy. He leaned forward and kissed me.

**A/N: Review!**


End file.
